Winterthur announces that missing silver snuff box by Barent Ten Eyck has been located

Barent Ten Eyck heart box. Photo: Courtesy Winterthur.

WINTERTHUR, DE.-Winterthur Museum, Garden & Library reports that the missing snuff box has been found. The snuff box was found by an alert Winterthur staff member and was located in a place where it had never been exhibited. Investigations by the Delaware State Police and Winterthur staff into how the item was relocated continue.

Winterthur discovered in October 2012 that a small, colonial silver snuff box with great sentimental value was missing from the museum.

It is very rare for anything to be missing from Winterthur. This box has been on display for 60 years in the museum rooms with other colonial New York silver items. It was given to Winterthur by Henry Francis du Pont.

The item was discovered to be missing during a recent inventory. Winterthur conducts ongoing inventories of all our collections.

The silver box is in the shape of a heart with a bird engraved on the lid. This box would fit in the palm of an adults hand and measures about 3.0 inches by 2.5 inches. This box was gift to the museum from Henry Francis du Pont in 1952.

Snuff is a form of ground tobacco that was fashionable to inhale. This box also could have held cosmetics.

A colonial silversmith working in the mid-1700s in Albany, New York, made this box. His name was Barent Ten Eyck (1714-1795). Mr. Ten Eyck served in the New York militia in the 8th regiment during the American Revolutionary War. Henry Francis du Pont was related to the Ten Eyck family through his mother, although he purchased this object and did not inherit it.